Some games were destined to be brilliant. Everything about them, from art style to gameplay just screams success. Other games are destined to be abysmal. Then, there are those which defy classification, games that have some features that shine brighter than the rest. Paper War is one of those.

The game is a simple shooter, for one or two players, that sees you blasting away at anything that moves and some things that don’t. In single player, the game’s generic, a riff on Space Invaders with some nice sketchy graphics and little else to recommend it. In multiplayer, however, the game finds its feet.

There are three modes on offer, each of them a twist on the basic single player game, all played on a single phone. Anti-Aircraft has you shooting your opponent’s planes with a cannon, Plane Smasher is a frantic tap-’em-up where you have to tap opposing colored planes and avoid tapping your own and Cannon Battle is a battle between two cannons, with wind speed and direction coming into play.

In a strange way, the game reminds me of Point Blank, Namco’s lightgun classic. Each of the modes is a mini game in its own right, and the color coded blasting is especially reminiscent. That’s no bad thing either, because Paper Wars also manages to capture the same rich vein of playability as its arcade-based ancestor.

So, if you’re looking for a game to play on your own, there are many better alternatives out there, and the game has no online multiplayer component either. What it does have is some of the best same phone multiplayer available on the Android Market. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s fun, easy to play and pretty addictive as well. Well worth shelling out for if you’ve got some time to kill and a friend to hand.